What have you done to your GS or GS Adventure today?

Not as flexible, but my Clearwater system (Canopener, Darla lights, Billie brakelight) is now on the third bike and has been perfect since 2015.

It's a sandstorm tank with a custom mounting set up I dreamed up.

Yes I often do a 5 1/2 hour round trip down a very long winding road 225k's each way to buy a couple of kilos of coffee beams we particularly like from Raglan here in NZ.
I'm usually so knackered once there I come home the easy straight road option.

?
currently buying beans green from "the nz coffee co." on khyber pass,
roasting at home, (if you ever can't get to raglan, try a kilo of nz coffee's jungle congo) https://www.thenzcoffeeco.co.nz/pages/coffee
which reminds me, need to do 200gm of columbian tomorrow morning to wake the kids up an restock the hopper........got to blend the sumatran down with something

So far this week I've ordered handle bars,headlight cover and right side bar multi switch unit . I'm all in getting this back on the road . I actually got to ride it around the block last week . Bent bars and hotwired lol . After this I have some leaks to address and some broken lights . Then it should be road ready .

no judgement here. Ill ride an hour for a Sheetz turkey sandwich. Lol.

I’ve been known to ride 190 miles to fill up on gas. Unfortunately I’m almost empty by the time I get back

Hey Saul,

Just a guess - but your battery might be low on fluid or be getting old? What is its resting voltage?

Potential (electricty pun!) theory:
The ballast needs a bunch of juice (it can draw like 10 amps for 250ms) to convert to voltage to ignite the bulb (~25,000 volts in some cases). Perhaps when you start the bike the juice it needs isn't there due to the battery being low (your charging system pushes its juice to bring your battery voltage up). You run the bike a minute and push some juice into the battery and that allows the ballast to get the juice it needs to fire the next time.

Throw a volt meter on your bike when it has been sitting over night (before starting it) and see what voltage your battery is resting at.

You have lots of variables (bulbs, ballasts, wiring, resistance, parasitic loss, battery) but this is an easy place to start to at least eliminate one of them.

Hope this helps.


p.s. I've had ballasts die in high vibration environments (went through several on my TE610).

My new garage should be built in about a month or so. Then I can get my No-Mar out of the basement and mount it again. I think that I'm less than an hour from you and you are welcome to have at it any time!

My luck would be that I break your tire changer


PS thank you for the offer.

Nice. I like it.

Raglan's about 540kms from me, is the coffee that good ? hmmmm I wonder

I did the 12K service in the garage in perfect weather the last 2 days. Bike has ~34,000 miles so just a little early per schedule but it was a good time to get it done. Very pleased to find the valve lash has not changed since I bought the bike new in 2013. Beemer Boneyard supplied the service kit and Mobile 1 oil and gear lube from AutoZone just down the hill.

What a clean garage you have. Nice!

Installed Puig Windscreen Visor- size large. Solved helmet buffeting problem. Easy install.

Thanks Hogges. The house is new to me last spring and the previous owner sealed the garage floor. Never had one before, but it makes it easy to clean the floor

Strapped it to a trailer for a trip to Utah...

Commenced 48K service. All was going well until I dropped the rear-drive and pulled the driveshaft.
No rust on the splines, all came apart easily, the rear boot is getting a little tattered but the rear U-Joint was quite notchy.

Took the driveshaft over to Sturgis BMW, the tech looked at it and agreed, placed call to Extended Warranty Company, before I got home I had a text from the warranty company approving the replacement of the drive-shaft and both boots. All I have to pay is the sales tax $110. I paid $1092 for the warranty, they replaced a rear drive Hub seal two years ago for $200, now this driveshaft which the part alone is over $1200! I think I have recouped my investment plus.

I put the driveshaft back in without the boots and continued the 48K service, I need to be able to turn the wheel to turn the engine to check the valves - tomorrows project.

You have better way of dealing with the tires as outlined in your youtube clip...

No tire changers get broken when you use them to change the tires but same can't be said for bikes needing tires changed...

Need to watch that clip of yours again - always get a good chuckle outta of it...

The companies that sell lowered pegs never tell you you’re going to need a new longer shifter and longer brake pedal. They lie by omission. I don’t know too many tall guys with size 8 feet. I got the Ilium works Big Grippers. I needed a new shifter and brake pedal. Not complaining though as the SW Motech shifter is much better than stock.